News

Stroud family, Auburn

Jennifer and Jay Stroud welcomed baby number three recently, and found themselves in need of more space and a place to make their forever home. They got what they wanted with the help of AHFA’s Step Up program.

Introduced to Step Up by their lender, Julia McCreight at Auburn Bank, the Strouds had been pushed to their space limits in the house that Jay purchased in 2008. Jennifer said, “We were right on top of each other – it was just so cramped.”

However, right after Jay purchased the home, the real estate market crashed. Even though the Strouds desperately wanted to find a bigger and more convenient home for their family, they were upside down on what they owed. Jay said since they were upside down, everything they had saved to put a down payment on a new house had to be put into closing and paying off the other house. "So, using Step Up let us be able to get 100% financing to get into this new home without having to worry about coming up with down payment money,” he said.

The Strouds found a new construction neighborhood in Auburn, and were able to work with the homebuilder to pick out the floor plan and all of the options they wanted. Now the Strouds are enjoying their new home and neighborhood.

Jennifer said, “It’s an up and coming neighborhood, and there are a lot of kids Kaleigh’s age. She got asked to play with some kids the other day, and it made me kind of sad, because I just thought – oh my, she’s growing up!” Jay added that they love their new home for more than just the added space, “It’s also a quiet neighborhood and convenient to everything. The only thing we’re really working on now is just putting up a fence for our dog.”